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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141974">i pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsagogo/pseuds/newsagogo'>newsagogo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>i didnt know i was broken 'til i wanted to change [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Battery City, Gen, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:55:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsagogo/pseuds/newsagogo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The sands can be unforgiving, but the dirt lets Vaya and their plants try as many times as they need. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Vamos &amp; Vaya (Fabulous Killjoys)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>i didnt know i was broken 'til i wanted to change [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>back at it again! vaya finding their place in the city but also the city finding its feet.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It's important to take comfort in the little things. There's comfort in dirt. The sands can be unforgiving, but the dirt lets Vaya and their plants try as many times as they need. </span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(the novelty of actually being Free has yet to wear off. neither has waking up not covered in sand, straining to hear any far-off sounds of a patrol approaching)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s something calming about working with the green. Vaya loves the new bustle of The City, so different from the Zones but still just as alive. The city slowly fills with more colour each day as Vaya coaxes growth from sprouts. Even when things go wrong, the dead plants can be composted. Faces of lost friends become strangers who become friends, faded memories spark recognition and make newer memories without the fear of it being taken away for good. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vaya finds old books hidden by older citizens in spaces even older than the Industry detailing uses for all sorts of plants. The older women (none old enough to have more than a few streaks of grey) show them seed stores, and the older droids (specks of rust starting to show) help them find scrap for containers. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(in the first few days since The Girl defused, vaya does little else but read. so much knowledge easily accessed amazes them, and when not exploring the city with Vamos they’re easily found perched with any book they can get their hands on)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vamos and Vaya still orbit one another, years of being the only family they had are not easily discarded. They spend plenty of time apart now, knowing that if anything were to happen news would be passed through the city to one of them faster than firing a raygun. Vamos drops by whichever pocket of the city Vaya tries to breathe life into with gossip of citizens well beings. Everyone has nightmares, of course, so the first plants Vaya convinces to grow are lavender and chamomile, and prays to the Witch this can help soothe the human population of the city (and asks DESTROYA to watch over the droids who they can’t do much more for than listen). They press the excess onto Val when he comes by, to check in before heading out to the zones for delivery. If he notices the rings under their eyes from sleepless nights he’s polite enough not to mention it to Vamos. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(if the ladies in charge of his building hear of it, vaya won’t say no to company on the harder nights or to the hot drinks they find pressed into their hands)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Vaya grows close to the droids in the city, who drag old pipes to use as shelves for plants and stick around to learn how to care for what grows. Everyone who takes up cooking duty knows Vaya, who greets them by name and asks around for any herbs they want grown as they gather up emptied cans to fill from the kitchens. Vaya is far from an expert, and certainly not one to ask for actual crops (that’s left to the people who understand the weather tech the Company used) but for the little things, the herbs and flowers, Vaya does their best.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Colour spreads slowly through the city but the tearing down of walls, both physical and emotional, spreads much faster. As the rigidity of life forced by the Company is ripped away, people start to take it upon themselves to connect with everyone and everything. Droids no longer restricted to specific districts, makeshift paths made above and below street level, on every corner a mailbox and every street a shrine to DESTROYA.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(noone admits to setting these up, though vaya certainly had in a few and knows vamos did too, but theres a pattern to it noticed. only after a story spreads and people believe do they appear. zone magic stretching into the core of the city, cradling the souls in the electricity once forgotten and finally found)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Some days, when the green can be moved, Vaya strolls through the city, dragging cans filled with budding plants and sprouts piled carefully onto any wagon or cart they borrow. Whispering instructions to the children who ask for one, and wandering across as much of the city as they can manage. People discuss the importance of names in loud voices and bid farewell to old ones, take plants to learn to care for as they learn to care for themselves. The city breathes and starts to sing and Vaya never stays in the same area for long, moving as soon as a garden is set up, wanting to hear how it's changing day by day.  There are as many posters up for newly formed bands and old favourites (Mad Gear returns, but these days there's someone younger on stage with him. People have yet to agree what they look like.) as there are for proposed new names for the city. Some are more humorous with walls covered in “the city… 2!” or “battery city remake” and others ask for it simply to be a Home.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Planting forget-me-nots around the murals people paint, emotions trapped in the paint for the ones they lost, and if they always grow purple around the louder ones sprayed by one of the twins maybe the loss will ache a little less. Vaya learns about weeds and smiles as the dandelion quickly becomes a favoured plant in the City, its determination to grow everywhere, even in the still-monochrome areas of the city, endearing it to those making communities here. In Between whatever Vamos has spent the day doing, they take it upon themself to check in on any garden or plants they’re near that day and recite the tips Vaya tells them to the people who need it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The radio stations link up again, Vaya hears the next time Cass comes by to visit yelling for his “favourite baby siblings (don’t tell Vinyl)”. He tells them of how the stations are setting back up, the old DJs who remain and the new ones joining, tells them to keep a radio on as he makes them both promise to visit soon. Vamos sees him off with a bag full of books copied out for the zones and Vaya gives him any seeds they think have a chance out in the zones (Val already took the earth out earlier in the month). </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The connection of the City and the Zones spreads, the radios hurrying the growth of the branching communities linking up. The city itself doesn’t expand, but the variety of people within it do, and so does the number of stop points throughout the zones. Things change from what everyone knew before, but Zone Three still vanishes from time to time, and buildings still change spots in the zones day and night. Vaya listens to the news from further zones, and sends news of their own to Vinyl. They hear Cass over the waves, his voice soothing on the nights Vaya spends above the streets with the plants, hands deep in the earth trying to work the fear away. And it is a night like this, when Vaya ties charms of feather and wire around the pots to ask for luck from the only gods they've ever known that cared, that news from beyond the zones trickles in tied to people they didn’t know were out there.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this took ages cuz i kept writing about plants too much and then had to backtrack bc not everyone cares about/took horticulture at school like me. so you get really vague descriptions of bits and pieces i know about urban gardening. like, extremely vague. i almost talked about mint in this and then that was when i knew it was too much.<br/>anyways yes i think the missile kid starts existing post canon. weirdly existing but yknow theyre there now.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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